They came, actually, from all over, nearly sea to shining sea, and certainly some near amber waves of grain.
          And flatlands and milk and cheese.
          One was a leftover from the previous coaching staff and amid an extended-by-injury career. They were of different personalities and some different backgrounds, brought together at place few had ever heard of maybe two years before showing up.

Feel free to add your memories of that season and what led up to it on the post at https://www.facebook.com/Thesportsreportofcentralgeorgia/

 Mercer's postseason media guide (includes stories)

 Mercer kept it’s cool at Utah State

 Mercer-FGCU showdown may be epic

 Mercer wins double-OT thriller over Upstate

 Bears knock off Eagles for A-Sun title

 A prediction: Duke isn’t automatic

 Down goes Duke

A weekend too good for words

 A year later …

          We’re talking about that senior class of 2014, that senior class of basketball players who five years ago today imprinted Mercer in the Macon, Central Georgia, and Georgia, and found a seat forever in the library of history of the men’s NCAA Tournament.
          Macon didn’t pay much attention to Mercer sports before that. Shoot, Mercer didn’t pay much attention to Mercer sports before that. Granted, life hasn’t changed substantially in that regard since then, in part because, well, one game isn’t going to change the habits and minds of a few hundred thousand people.
          But for parts of that season and certainly that week, Mercer loved Macon and Macon loved Mercer. As somebody connected to and watching both, I was floored seeing the reaction in Macon in the days leading up to the game, and certainly on gameday.
          Me? I was riding solo in Raleigh, watching this great group of kids deal with all this media attention before, of course, being served up as a first-round munchies for big, ol’ Duke.
          To think back of those pictures of people crammed in the streets on campus watching big screens brings back goose bumps, and always will.

          Alas, frankly, the firing of Bob Hoffman last week takes a whole lot of luster off what could’ve been and should’ve been something of a week of memories and reminders, and maybe a little gathering of some sort, like a game-watching function at Hawkins with food, returning players, some videos of players from 2014 and have a big-money booster or plane-owner fly in a player or two from then, the head coach talking about 2019-20, and keep the feeling alive.
         The move certainly changed plans here, because Hoffman’s abrupt dismissal put a damper on Mercer men’s basketball in general, and no doubt killed a little bit of a celebratory mood.
          That the axe fell only 10 days before the five-year anniversary of The Duke Win adds to the cloud. Otherwise, well, somebody might’ve come up with something. There was a chance to relive it a little bit in early February, when five players from the team were able to make it back for what turned out to be the retiring of Langston Hall’s jersey.
          Even for the guy who covered them so feverishly, from the opener to that absolutely phenomenal A-Sun quarterfinal epic with USC Upstate to the roller coaster conference tournament title game at Florida Gulf Coast to the inevitable season-ender against a burly Tennessee team, there was comforting familiarity walking into the President’s Room that Saturday afternoon and chatting with Langston Hall, Anthony White Jr., Daniel Coursey, Monty Brown, and Kevin Canevari.
          Down the stretch, those five along with Jake Gollon and Bud Thomas – the other seniors, unable to attend last month - spent plenty of time talking with yours truly, interviews that turned silly sometimes as they laughed at and about each other and veered off into general conversations.

          They were smart, loose, confident, prepared, and often kind of goofy. Just what it takes for a program to go from being at the bottom of the RPI about 15 years earlier – they were – to doing what they did.
The big picture of the season is forever ingrained in so many brains forever, but there were so many snippets of what led to Thomas’s long pass to White for a layup sealing it (will never forget that play, nor my “hooolyyy (bleep)” proclamation when White hauled it in, and then there are the goose bumps among the recollection).

          The process began during the 2010-11 season, when Mercer went 15-18, and lost by single digits to Harvard, William & Mary, Georgia, Charlotte, Georgia Tech in non-conference play and six more against A-Sun opponents, including the season-ending 80-72 loss to Belmont.
          Mercer was outscored by 1.1 points a game that season, which marked the debut of Langston Hall, who went 1-for-5 from the floor with six assists in the opener against Oglethrope, going on to start every game that year. Co-freshmen Kevin Canevari, Bud Thomas, and Daniel Coursey also played.
          The Bears got off to a 3-11 start, but clearly started finding a groove, even with the inability to win close games, not unusual for a young, in-transition team.
          We sure didn’t think great things were coming after Mercer opened the 2011-12 season with a frighteningly close 66-57 home win in the opener over NAIA Emory, ditto the 81-63 loss at Missouri that followed.

          Slowly, things started coming together. Justin Cecil’s scoring picked up, and Mercer lost by four at Belmont, won in overtime at Samford, lost by three at Seton Hall and 14 at Georgia, then knocked off Georgia Tech. A five-game road trip ended with a so-so 65-56 win at Navy to improve to 9-6 to end the calendar year.
          And “vrooooom” followed, the Bears embarking on an 11-game winning streak, one of the program’s best in awhile. They stumbled some with a 2-3 stretch, and back came “vroooom,” led by Cecil and sparked by Travis Smith off the bench as the youngsters got older.
          A postseason invite to the CollegeInsider.com Tournament was perfect for a rebuilding program after a four-point A-Sun tourney loss to FGCU.
          Mercer got over that.

          Wins over Tennessee State, Georgia State, Old Dominion and Fairfield followed, and Mercer – Mercer? – was in a postseason tournament championship game, at Utah State. For the rest of his days, that game will be near the forefront of Hall’s mind.
          “I didn’t know anything until Utah State, until everybody was like, ‘This is where the ‘I believe, I believe that we can win’ chant came from,” Hall said. “So it was going to be crazy there.
          “Aaaaand that was maybe an understatement. That was the loudest gym, to this day, I’ve ever been in.”

          Mercer led most of the first half, and was up nine at the break. The lead grew to 10, and the Aggies started their run. Center Kyisean Reed reeled off three dunks in a row to pull Utah State within one, and Mercer called time with 6:29 left.
          “We’re in the huddle, packed in real tight. We couldn’t hear a word Coach was saying. Not one word. It was the loudest I’ve ever heard a gym in my life.”
          And Mercer, not used to playing in front of large, loud, basketball-savvy, foundation-shakin’ crowds, handled it.
          Another Reed dunk got Utah State into the lead, which popped up to six points quickly. The Bears got the lead back with 2:16 left, and Travis Smith’s 3 with 50 seconds left put the Bears on top 63-49, the margin fell to one, and two free throw by Jakob Gollon with four seconds left sealed the 70-67 win.
          “Only the CIT” grew to wins the next season over Florida State and Alabama, an eight-game conference win streak, another heartbreaking conference tournament loss to FGCU, in Macon, but also a trip to the NIT, and a win at Tennessee.
          Hunter to the hunted. Mercer was the hunted.
          A great three-OT win over Valparaiso was followed by a lackluster 14-point loss at Oklahoma. Then it started: OT win over Denver, a three-point win at Mississippi, a thumping of Jacksonville, a loss at North Florida, and eight straight wins, starting with an OT win over USC Upstate.

          Oh, those are glorious words: “OT” and “USC Upstate.” Fast forward past the win at FGCU and then the humbling 19-point loss at Upstate to the A-Sun semifinal at Hawkins Arena.
          It hasn’t been home to many games like that monster.
          Upstate won the first half 31-29. Mercer won the second half 31-29. Yeah, it was that kinda game. Overall, 10 ties and six lead changes, and nobody led by more than eight.
          A strap-yourself-into-your-seat-and-breeeathe game loaded with substantial players from Upstate, like Torrey Craig, who is still in the NBA, and big Ricardo Glenn and crafty Ty Greene, was tied with 1:57 left in the second overtime.

          Enter T.J. Hallice, he of no starts and 11.5 energetic minutes a game, on whom this anniversary should get cards and texts and calls from all involved that season.
          It’s 72 all. Hallice gets an offense rebound and puts it back. Then he tips away a pass for a steal and scores on the play – but misses the accompanying free throw - and the Bears are up four.
          Then he teamed with Ike Nwamu to put pressure on beastly Craig’s final shot – that barely missed – and the Bears lived. Finally. In the A-Sun tournament. At home.
          “We always talk about T.J.,” Coursey said. “We probably talk about that game amongst ourselves more than the Duke game. … T.J.’s coming in in overtime and like six points, four boards, blocking shots. Literally like the most clutch time that anyone has played at Mercer, without a doubt.”
          No disagreement from White, now a small-college assistant coach in Indiana.
          “Honestly, that Upstate game,” White said. “Everybody knows who Duke is. But at the same time, if we don’t have that Upstate game, we don’t get to play Duke. When it comes to intensity and just how the crowd was and the atmosphere, that was, honestly, that was just about as good as Duke was.”
          Then came what really would have been enough, following up that Thursday night WWE match with a road trip to South Florida, and then beating FGCU at FGCU to finally win the tournament, a year after the Eagles were a mid-major tournament darling.

          Then came Duke.
          Mercer lost Monty Brown to a concussion during the game, and mid-majors always need the bigs healthy.  A seven-point Duke lead was one at halftime, and then it was five with only 4:52 left. Then White’s 3 tied it with 2:43 left and two Gollon freebies at 1:54 gave Mercer the lead.
          Forever and ever.
          The collection of players, particularly the seniors – aka The Big Weird, Kev Jacks, Tian, Grampa, Buddington Carroll Thomas, Bug, and Golden Child - made everybody look brilliant, but Hall knows how fortunate the Bears were for things to come together, because they often don’t. He noted that the Bears had plenty of talented players in the preceding seasons – like Brandon Moore, Travis Smith, Cecil, Mark Hall, Brian Mills, James Florence, among others – but things didn’t click or the breaks weren’t there.

          There were recruiting gambles that early on looked like they might be failed gambles, and dealing with Hoffman was no Hallmark moment.
          “Before I got to Mercer, I definitely didn’t think Daniel Coursey was going to make it,” said Hall, who had played AAU ball with Coursey. “He just didn’t seem to like basketball all that much. He was tall, so ‘I guess I’ll go play basketball.’ He was talking about going to Mercer to play basketball or go to the Merchant Marine Academy, I think.”
          It took a year for Coursey to get into it.
          “He was starting to work out outside of practice,” Hall said. “The first year, if it wasn’t mandatory, you weren’t gonna see him. When the spring hit, he wasn’t coming to the gym.”
          Bud Thomas was no gym rat, either.
          “Bud, not until senior year,” Hall said. “He started getting in there senior year. Up until senior year, he wasn’t in there, either. He had the talent to shoot the ball, and he was smart.”

          Most of the players keep in touch on a fairly regular basis, some more than others. It’s natural. Just as before they arrived in Macon, they’re spread out, with one – Hall – playing in Europe. There are young ‘ns involved and jobs and families, time-consumers all. The group that won an ESPY for the best upset is also bound together by tragedy, the death Jibri Bryan in February of 2016.
          They probably keep in touch more than the average team, plus with some of their opponents. A few old FGCU buddies communicated with Hall after his jersey was retired.
          Five were able to make it back last month for a reunion of sorts, and to watch Mercer retire Hall’s jersey. And you get the impression that they can still finish each other’s sentences, remember who was the king of Halo or Madden or FIFA or Call of Duty.
          And who isn’t the king of all that.
          No doubt they’ve been getting some calls and texts and messages and throughout the day, five years later, and there will be communications on the firing of Hoffman, the man who brought them together and brought Mercer to the lips of Macon, of Georgia, and of the nation.
          Hopefully, things all work out, and in five years, as many as possible can find a way to Macon sometime in March, sometime near the first round, and there can be that kind celebration, for the school and team and community, to remember that phenomenal joy – and not talk about Tennessee two days later – that a Thursday afternoon brought so many.
          It was, as Thomas said, a weekend too good for words.
          And too good to ever forget, five years later and beyond.